Texas Firearms Festival Daily Digest: A Run on Guns, Actions Have Consequences, and Fixing Chicago

Guns Sales Have Spiked 40% Since Orlando Shooting – “In June the FBI conducted about 2.1 million background checks on people attempting to purchase firearms, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). That’s a 40% increase from June of last year when about 1.5 million background checks were conducted. At this time last year, there had been about 10.5 million background checks. So far in 2016 there have already been 13.8 million, about a 32% increase.” Huh. Wonder what could be motivating all these consumers to buy so many more guns at this particular point in our history?

That one will leave a mark. Meanwhile, here’s a handy data point from FMG Publications. Suffer the little shotgun?

Oh darn:Gun language stalls House GOP’s anti-terror bill – “The House Freedom Caucus announced they will oppose the legislation, in part because of language in the bill that would implement a three-day block on gun purchases by individuals who are on a federal terror watch list. The faction is made up of about three dozen lawmakers, but that’s enough to put passage in jeopardy because Democrats are likely to oppose the bill.” Standing athwart capitulation yelling ‘stop.’

Magnum Research Upgrades Popular BFR Series – “In an effort to always keep the BFR in the forefront of this competitive industry of revolver manufacturers, the BFR has been redesigned with some exciting new features. The hammer spur was addressed first and it is now taller and narrower than previous models. It was raised vertically allowing for easier cocking and is significantly easier to shoot, even with a gloved hand. The new hammer is 100% machined in stainless steel and is made with extremely tight tolerances giving it a very smooth and consistent trigger pull.” Ever shot one?

Wet noodle time.House G.O.P. May Seek to Punish Democrats for Gun Control Sit-In – “The behavior was not “becoming of the U.S. Congress,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters. He said he had been told that Democrats had mistreated House staff members and had perhaps even damaged congressional furniture during their sit-in-style protest. Mr. McCarthy said that he and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, would soon meet with the House sergeant-at-arms to discuss investigative paths and possible ramifications for the Democrats.”

You don’t say: Gun Control Won’t Fix Chicago – “The political left’s response to gun violence is typically more gun control, even though the places with the biggest problems tend to sport harsher firearms restrictions, and criminals by definition ignore laws. Another fundamental problem with the left’s approach to gun violence is that legislation proposed by Democrats tends to target weapons that aren’t used in most shootings. Only occasionally do liberals admit this, which is why it’s news when it happens.”

New 9mm Addition to the Ruger SR1911 Line – “Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is excited to announce the addition of the Ruger® SR1911® Lightweight Commander-Style pistol chambered in 9mm Luger. Like the SR1911 Lightweight Commander-Style pistol in .45 Auto, this 9mm version features a commander-length slide and an aluminum frame that weigh almost a half-pound less than the all-stainless steel Commander-Style configuration. This model also comes with a new look, including black rubberized grip panels and a gray anodized frame.”

You realize how out of step with reality the Democrats and anti’s are when you consider the incredible amount of firearms being sold in this country, then you realize that people like Hillary and Feinstein think that if a new law is passed, Americans will simply “turn them in”. Right. Millions of people are rushing out to buy these guns at risk of them being banned, only to turn them in shortly thereafter.

Well I’m buying one jwm. Of course I’m an OFWG who still thinks he’s a badazz…then again I out lifted the whole gym not too long ago so I think you’re onto something. Lots of youngbuck weenies…BFR-whatdidja think it means? I saw a 30-30 with 10″ barrel. That’s silly.

Handguns and rifles are what will see the harshest bans with some exceptions like the KSG, Saiga 12/20/etc and similar type firearms. If things go really south I wouldn’t be surprised to see a repeat of the SPAS/Striker/Street Sweeper being declared destructive devices.

Shotguns are nifty and it’s hard to beat them for home defense, but I’m more of a rifle guy. Seems to me that unless you’re into 3-gun or bird hunting, there’s not much reason to own more than one shotgun (if you own any at all).

Shotgun all the way for me. Flexibility, cost of entry, barrier penetration, lethality, and reliability all tilt in the pump shotgun’s favor. With mine I’m covered for all game from squirrels to frigging Sasquatch, with a minimal investment that includes casting and reloading gear. Ammunition availability is outstanding to boot.

There really aren’t many reasons to own more than 1 shotgun. Barrel swaps are easy, and you can hunt just as easy as 3 gun with your tuned up extended mag semi. I only own my Mossy pump for training reasons. We don’t get to play with those as much and I want to stay proficient.

I don’t think it has anything to do with “beta males”. Looking at the graphs, it just looks like rational economic behavior to me. They move more or less in lockstep until the rise of a certain political figure, who makes a lot of noise about wanting to ban rifles and handguns, not shotguns. Then people really start buying up the rifles and handguns. If you’ve got a limited budget for guns, and the people in power are talking about banning ARs and AKs, the smart buy is not the shotgun (probably the last gun they’d try to ban, after banning everything else first).

On top of that, a lot of the recent growth in firearms ownership has been fueled by the concealed-carry market and younger people getting into the “tactical” guns they see in video games. All that growth in rifle sales since the sunset of the Clinton AWB ain’t Marlin 336’s and Remington 700’s. For those two groups, shotguns are either Fudd guns or just a little too big for IWB or purse carry.

I want a shotgun, but I have no place to shoot it. I’m in between Denton and Tarrant County. There’s no public land to go shooting on. All of the ranges in my area have pretty tight restrictions on shooting shotguns, so much so that it’s not worth it. There’s only one place to go that I know of, and it’s quite a drive and rather expensive. While I’m on the subject, there’s basically only one range in two counties with 100yard rifle range open to the public (excluding Bass Pro’s rifle tubes), the others are pistol ranges with a max distance of around 30 yards. Unless I befriend someone with land, buy my own (not for a long time), or someone opens up a shotgun range near me, there’s no point in me owning one.

I’m betting I’m not the only one in that situation. I’m sure there are plenty of city-slickers and suburbanites that don’t own shotguns precisely because they have no where to shoot it.

Here! That’s my situation exactly…except I’m in NE Ohio. Very few long rifle ranges or clay ranges within 45 minutes of me. It’s just easier and more convenient to regularly go to a pistol length range.

If you don’t mind making a day of it, there is a decent range in Cisco, 2 1/2 to 3 hours to the west on I-20. They’ve got pistol, rifle and shotgun ranges. All it takes is a $20/year membership in the Cisco gun club, which can be obtained at the Napa store as you come into town on the main street.

Sorry not in to shotguns. Has nothing to do with recoil but the fact they do nothing for me. I am a MSR kind of guy. If I was to get anything shotgun related it would be either a S&W Governor or a Benelli and even that is a tough pill to swallow because I could buy a really nice rifle for what both shotguns go for.

Plus like someone said above shotguns are low on the banners list so I would rather use my money on “scary” rifles and pistols, ammo, and mags. Those are the 4 items always in the banners sights.

Let’s not forget that most guns, with proper care, will literally run for 100+ years. Shotguns seem to be even more so. A single pump action is so diverse in it’s many uses, and there are just so many 12 ga. loads that there seem to be an unlimited supply, that I guess once most folks have one, they’re pretty much set for shotguns. Rifles and handguns have so many different calibers and platforms that guys like us will find a reason/use to own as many as possible. However unless you’re just an avid collector or into 3 gun, trap, or bird hunting, most folks figure they can get by with just one.

Well… I suppose you could look at it a different way and say that the market is simply keeping up with demand. Shotguns are notoriously reliable and resilient meaning it can be a great one time purchase that does what it needs to do and doesn’t really need to be replaced over and over again. Handguns all fit different niches; carry guns, competition guns, different calibers, etc. Rifles are more of the same especially with the MSR revolution and more people getting into the shooting sports. Shotguns on the other hand are generally in one or two gauges, offer a near lifetime of service with minimal repair, and you can often use the same shotgun for HD and for hunting if you have a good set up.

Depends entirely on what you are expecting to need it for. For close-in defense or crowd (gang) control a shotgun is mighty handy. Up against an assault with 5.56 or 7.62 rifles, or worse yet long-range snipers, even against LEOs with pistols outside your door, a shotgun ain’t worth shit. Range is too limited. Even 8+1 rounds of 00 buck can’t compete with a guy under good cover and popping away at 50 – 100 yards with a 30 round mag of 5.56. Best you can hope to do with the shotty is make him duck until he realizes you are reloading.

No offense is meant here, but the versatility of rifles (especially black rifles) over shotguns is clear. 00 Buck is not some tidal wave of lead death as most people claim, and in the average distances inside a house, will not open enough to present a huge advantage over a rifle, which can generally have a shorter overall length making it more handy in cramped spaces. If the shotgun is used defensively out side the home, it can be effective within the same range as a shotgun, plus 5-10x further out. Oh yeah, and it can hold 3-5x more ammo depending on the type.

I have one shotgun and it gets to shoot some clays about once a month or so, and I can’t see a reason to buy another. My rifles and pistols on the other hand go out almost every weekend and each serves a different purpose. Most are simply fun, especially the old surplus war rifles and pistols. I can see lots of reasons to buy more of them.

In relation to the video from IraqVeteran… Am I the only person on the planet who has a ton of guns and just can’t justify buying more? I have every niche covered from bad-breath distance to 1000 yards +, from birds to bears from plinking to precision. I just can’t see buying yet more firearms and more safes.

Perhaps but that value is limited by my storage capacity. I’m not going to buy a bunch more safes that are difficult to move just so I can have more guns that might or might not give me a return on investment.

At a certain point you just realize that the gun you’re considering buying adds no capability to your arsenal and does nothing but take up space.

For me this happened around 43 firearms. I simply realized that I had every base covered and that anything else was simply a duplicate of something I already owned. At that point spare parts for what I have took over.

The Stars are great pistols. For me one of my favorite surplus purchases was Star 9mm Largo, 2 mags, with 250 rds for $100- proof marks and serial number dated it to 1949 for use in Franco’s army. Ever since then, any and every LGS I find myself in, I’m looking for it. I’ve managed to accumulate about 800 rounds of the stuff. It’s a yin and yang- PITA to find ammo for, but the hunt is always fun. Of course once you shoot it, it’s about 70 cents per round…ouch.

I am building a couple ARs for either a Rainy Decade or future sale. I don’t think the market will be red hot for rifles come November, people are buying now. Ammo…that’s a different story. But other than selling my sole gun in that caliber, I’ve never ever sold ammo before.

I have every niche filled too, but there’s always something new to discover. Are you proficient with all the common military pattern rifles of the mid to late 20th century? Well…time to get a G3 clone, or FAL, or M1A, etc.

I came to the same conclusion. I was faced with getting another safe when it dawned on me that if the shit hits the fan, I cannot carry 40 semi auto pistols, 20 AR 15s, 12 shotguns, etc. So I took a hard look at my collection, sold off about 30 guns, and used the money to buy ammo and mags for the guns I kept.

I have friends who own 12-25 9mm pistols. Seriously? What’s the point of that? Keep a compact, a sub-compact and a full frame, sell 9-22 of those things and buy something more useful! Who the hell needs 8 variants on the M9?

In the event of civil unrest (big time, not local crap) a drawer full of AR lowers would be worth their weight in gold. Might want to lay in a stock of nice triggers, too. Maybe a few bolt carrier groups.

I’d just like to know how many bloody shirt waving closet buyers are in that stat. I have an inkling the number is growing. Well between them and dudes with skinny jeans and very well manicured well thought out beards.

It is blatantly obvious that the anti-gun crowd is up to more than “public safety”. First, they always target weapons hardly used in criminal acts. They falsely identify what weapons are used as military grade forearms. They “blanket target” classes of firearms which include even common hunting arms. They use false statements to “reinterpret” the 2nd Amendment instead of referring to the words and intent of the authors (James Madison and George Mason) upon whose testimony the individual states ratified the 2nd Amendment along with the rest of the Constitution. The report false data by combining statistics from different categories of the CDC data and the FBI data to make the situation look worse than it factually is. They target anyone who may support private ownership as being terrorists, including members of the armed forces who defend the rights, all of them, of all Americans. They claim that pro-gun people do not care about how many people, especially children, are killed by guns. They dupe those who are less educated about guns in order to harvest their votes in order to advance their agenda. Rather than use the amendment process as the Constitution requires, the circumvent the people being directly involved in any changes to their rights by using the legislative process because they know an amendment would fail. Remember, alcohol required two separate amendments; one to prohibit and one to reinstate; and alcohol isn’t even an enumerated right of the people.

The Democrats should be reminded that after every revolution there are tribunals and the losers are not those who fought with weapons but those who are “thinkers”… progressives. The winners always fear people who might revive ideas which will lead to their ouster. Look at what Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and others did.

They mentioned in the video that the semi-auto shotgun has “a simpler manual of arms” meaning once you figure out how to load it up with 9 rounds all you have to do is take it off safe and keep puling the trigger until it’s empty. The lack of the shuck-shuck sound of racking the rounds also does not attract attention to your location so much, IMO.

Personally I don’t like the difficulty of putting 9 more rounds in the tube once you run dry, but that’s just me. Not like you can run around the house or in the field with those fancy reloading gizmos they use in 3-gun competitions.

The Chicago problem is a complex one, but I don’t think fixing the problem is the goal of the political left.

The problem, after all, brings in quite a few billionaire bucks these days. Those bucks keep many useless bureaucrats gainfully employed, fund quite a few campaigns and buy boatloads of discounted drugs for elaborate parties.

“Fixing” the problem in Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Baltimore, L.A., etc. is exactly the same problem as faced by the majority of charity organizations – if they use your donations/taxes to actually fix the problem they are out of a job. They have a huge negative incentive to actually come up with any plans that will resolve the issues at hand.

How much taxes would you be willing to pay for a huge metro police force if any significant percentage of the non-LEO citizens in that metro area carried personal firearms on a regular basis? How much would you donate to AIDS or cancer research if they actually found cures?

Purchased my first can this past week along with an(other) 300 blk pistol upper and a couple cases of ammo 🙂

After explaining to my wife and father that anything they want to shoot for the next 2 years should be bought now, all complains were swiftly swept away and another trip to our awesome new LGS has been planned!

I don’t think buying guns that could be banned is a particularly smart idea because they could be subject to confiscation.

The smart move is to buy rifles with a similar function that will slide under the radar. Want 5.56? By a Ranch Rifle in 5.56? Like the AK? Ranch Rifle in in 7.62 x 39. In world of 10 round magazines that Garand is looking awfully nice. Maybe the M-1A gets overlooked, buy one of those.
With a 10 round magazine limit 1911pattern or single stack SIG is the way to go. And let’s not forget about buying a good wheel gun or two.

I, myself, look forward to non compliance in the event of a ban. It’s the reason I just went out and bought an MCX. Along with calling and emailing my legislators, it is an act of civil disobedience to an unjust law.

Non compliance means that you cannot use it. While it might make feel cool to own an illegal firearm it is a waste of money. If you already have a black rifle or two you have already covered the thumb in the eye of the government base.

The only real solution to gun grabbers is not to try to anticipate which weapons they will confiscate since eventually they want to confiscate ALL of them.

Worried? First buy a 3D printer and lots of whatever medium it needs for printing, or better yet the 3D CNC machine.

Then buy a lot of 12 gauge shotgun shells and appropriate size pipes for when they come and confiscate your 3D printer(s).

Personally I expect that after the first few attempts at confiscation go horribly and bloody wrong the success rate will dwindle rapidly. Pension or no pension, you only get it if you survive to retire and who wants to die enforcing an unconstitutional law for a bunch of tyrants? At some point they just have to say, “Is my life or my pension really worth continually murdering my neighbors and fellow citizens?

There are a few guns on my list, but none are on the banned list or soon to be “assault weapons” list, so no hurry. But I am stocking up on ammo, because no one can figure out if the ammo law restrictions go into effect on 1/1/17 or 1/1/18.( I am hoping for the latter, of course.) I don’t really care about the check against the APPS list, since I’m not on it, nor do I care about the ammo purchase reporting requirements, since that is likely to go the way that NY’s went–too much data, too few employees, and not enough computer equipment to make any sense out of the data. But I do expect prices to rise at least 10-20%, and I will likely be cut off from my favorite source of internet ammo.

I never appreciated the shotgun until I spent a weekend at a “combat shotgun” course.
That was so much GD fun and it felt so super badass to be feeding it non-stop and blasting all sorts of targets near and far, targets behind concealment, blowing open doors, etc…

If the world would end tomorrow I’d still grab for a rifle but if a shotgun were all I could manage I wouldn’t feel one bit lesser with a 12 gauge in my hand, a pocket full of slugs and another full of 00 Buck.

I’d love to tool-up about now, but with two special-needs kids and a wife who’s a stay-at-home mom, it just ain’t in the budget. If I knew better, I would have bought everything I could lay my hands on 10 years ago, when I was single and had disposable income.

Why oh why did they have to mention the FAL???? Damn it, I just picked up a receiver yesterday for my ACR stock build, and I was hoping to pick up an Imbel gear logo reciever for a parts kit I have at not an increased price! 🙁 Plus, I’d still like a few other FALs for my collection!